New Zealand’s global relevance depends on becoming essential to offshore partners - Joanna Silver

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New Zealanders worry about distance, and rightly so, too. As a nation perched on the edge of the global map (and often excluded from it), we know all too well how far we are from…

Joanna Silver is head of sustainable economic development at Westpac New Zealand.

New Zealanders worry about distance, and rightly so, too. As a nation perched on the edge of the global map (and often excluded from it), we know all too well how far we are from our markets, how stretched our supply lines are, and how little we contribute to global economic outputs.

As Tim McCready so eloquently observed in the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom report, “Would the world notice if New Zealand disappeared?”

Worries about relevance and fragility go up especially quickly when the world gets more uncertain. This was reflected in the recent Mood of the Boardroom survey, where geopolitical issues and the fuel crisis ranked among the top concerns of corporate New Zealand.

How do we as a nation, and corporate leaders within it, steer our businesses and the economy at large, where chaos and turmoil are a constant backdrop to strategic decision-making?

It is a question we at Westpac ask ourselves, and we’ve tried to answer it by inviting some of the leading geopolitical, energy, and capital allocation experts from around the world to share their thinking on our problem with our customers at our recent Westpac Strategic Outlook Forum.

The answers we got from these experts, who are too numerous to name in this piece, were global relevance, energy security, leadership, and extending our time horizons.

Distance no longer shields New Zealand from global disruption. Digital networks, cyber threats, fuel crises, climate events and supply-chain shocks travel across all borders. At the same time, established international relationships are increasingly being reassessed through the lenses of security and strategic interest.

The challenge for New Zealand is therefore to move beyond being well regarded to being relevant and, ultimately, essential.

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